16-Bit Resources

PIC24F ‘GB’ Family of Microcontrollers

USB | Low Power | Dual Partition Flash | Segment LCD | Scalable

With the Internet of Things (IoT) market continuing to grow by billions of devices each year, designers increasingly need lower-power MCUs that will enable these applications. The PIC24F ‘GB’ family of microcontrollers (MCUs) are low-power,
high-performance devices that offer up to 1 MB of dual-partition Flash memory with live update capabilities. In addition to ultra-low-power performance, these new devices feature Full-Speed USB host and device, high-speed DMA, 12-bit analog, AES,
capacitive touch sensing, built in op amps and much more.

Many embedded hardware systems, such as power supplies in server farms, large database networks, as well as industrial and medical systems, handle extremely critical applications that cannot afford to go offline at any cost. Despite being very well
designed, bug fixes and additional features are constantly being requested every day by end users. To update the firmware on these systems without taking them offline is crucial and vital in today’s world. Devices with dual-partition flash
with Live Update capability allow execution from one part of the memory while updating your code from the other, enabling you to update your firmware in the field or remotely Over-The-Air (OTA) without having to shut down your application.

Key Features of the PIC24F ‘GB’ Family

Key FeatureDescription

USBOn-The-Go (OTG) compliant, dual-role capable; can act as either host or peripheral.

Segment LCDIntegrated display controller with up to 512 segments with capability of operating in sleep mode.

Flexible PeripheralsWide range of basic and specialized peripherals including Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) such as Crypto Engine, Configurable Logic Cells (CLC), RTCC, PWMs and Peripheral Trigger Generator (PTG) designed to take the load off the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and reduce the overall energy requirement.

Dual-Partition Flash with Live UpdateCapable of holding two independent software applications, including bootloader permitting simultaneous programming of one partition while executing application code from the other while allowing run-time switching between active partitions.

Looking Beyond Low-Power MCUs

As more wearables, wireless sensor networks and other Internet of Things (IoT) enabled smart devices are getting powered from battery, energy conservation becomes paramount. Today’s connected applications must consume little power and, in extreme
cases, last for up to 20 years while running from a single battery. To enable applications like these, products with Microchip’s eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology offer the industry’s lowest run and sleep currents.